Featured soloist has a longtime love of Gershwin

• By Roger McBain
• Evansville Courier & Press
• Posted September 29, 2011 at 5:02 p.m.

Kevin Cole never set out to play the piano as George Gershwin, he says. It just happened.

The featured soloist for the Evansville Philharmonic's first concert of the season on Saturday began piano lessons at age 4 , and may have heard recordings of some of Gershwin's music as child in Bay City, Mich., he says. His fascination with Gershwin's music came a few years later, however, when he was 7.

That's when Cole's parents let him stay up on a school night to see a late show TV screening of "Rhapsody in Blue," a 1945 feature film based on Gershwin's short, prolific life.

Later that week, when he asked for a Gershwin biography at his local library, he learned that one of the best, "The Gershwin Years: George and Ira," was cowritten in 1958 by Edward Jablonski, a New York writer who was born in Cole's hometown.

"I couldn't believe that," he said.

Cole remembered it, though, when at 15 he made his first visit to New York, where he lives today. "About the first thing I did when I got here was I pulled out the Manhattan phone book, looked up 'Jablonski, E.,' not knowing if it was the right Jablonski, and made a call. I said 'Hi, I'm Kevin Cole, I'm from Bay City, Mich., and I like Gershwin.'"

The call led to a dinner invitation from Jablonski, who invited the precocious young pianist to play some Gershwin on the living room spinet. Cole obliged with several selections.

"After I got done he made the statement that changed my life," Cole recalled. "He said 'Has anyone ever told you that when you play, you sound just like Gershwin?'"

Cole had never heard a recording of Gershwin playing. When Jablonski played a tape of Gershwin playing on live radio shows in the early 1930s, however, Cole heard what the writer was talking about.

So did members of Gershwin's family and inner circle, when Jablonski introduced them to the young pianist. "They were in their 70s and their 80s at the time," he recalled. "And it was unanimous - they said 'We never thought we'd ever hear the piano sound like George again, but here you are.' So that's how it all began."

Cole has gone on to become one of the country's best-known champions of modern American composers, with a special affinity for Gershwin. He has performed the American composer's music in Los Angeles's Hollywood Bowl, Washington's Kennedy Center, London's Albert Hall and in concert venues around the world. He has played with William Warfield, Barbara Cook, Marvin Hamlisch and Dawn Upshaw, with whom he played on Gramophone's 1995 musical album of the year, Gershwin's "Oh, Kay!" Cole also has recorded as a solo on "Cole Plays Gershwin" and on his debut vocal album, "In the Words of Ira - The Songs of Ira Gershwin."

Saturday he'll play George Gershwin's bluesy "Concerto in F," which, along with Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," comprise the most played piano concertos in the world, he said.

The concert, featuring American music, will include Francis Scott Key's "The Star-Spangled Banner," Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" Overture, and Antonin Dvorak's "From the New World" Symphony No. 9, inspired by the Czech composer's impressions of the United States.

© 2011 Evansville Courier & Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/sep/29/no-headline---ev_philharmonic/?partner=RSS